Review: Mule Boy

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Cover image of "Mule Boy" by Andrew Krivak

Mule Boy

Mule Boy, Andrew Krivak. Bellevue Literary Press. (ISBN: 9781954276468) 2026.

Summary: New Years Day 1929 changed Ondro Prach’s life. His first day as mule boy was also the day he alone survived a mine collapse.

His mother tried to avoid sending Ondro to the mines. But finally, when the mine foreman came by to offer him the beginning job of nipper, she relented. Ondro’s father had died in the mines. Ondro worked hard and soon became a spragger. Then, he was offered the job of mule boy, leading the mule that pulled cars in and out of the mine. He was assigned Wicked, who lived up to his name. But he fed him carrots and spoke softly to him in Slovak, and Wicked gave him no trouble.

His first day as mule boy was New Year’s Day. He worked with the miners John Chibala and Stefan Bozak, and their butties Emil and Matty. The whole team worked rapidly to clear the room of coal, to finish early. But just as they were loading the last bit, the mine collapsed, save for a space around a supporting beam. All but Ondro were badly injured, including Wicked who was killed in the collapsed entrance to the room.

Emil and Matty die first. Stefan and John live longer, sharing the light of carbide lamps to help Ondro dig a way out. On breaks, as their lives wane, they talk about their love of life and what it is to meet death. Ondro wonders if this dark place will be his tomb and how he will meet death. With John’s dying breath, after he has spoken of missing his daughter Magda, he points out the way for Ondro to escape, and Ondro does, but too late for the others he leaves behind.

Ondro and his mother move away but life is hard. Others mock him as “the mule boy” and he gets in fights, including one where he badly injured the other boy. So he vows never again to use violence. He works in a brewery, frequently drunk. But he begins a relationship with Magda Chibala, John’s daughter. They marry, but his drinking creates tension between them. Then the draft comes and when he reports, he refuses induction because of his vow. He spends most of the war in prison. Magda requests an annulment and marries another man.

But prison saves him. He stops drinking and meets Jacobson. Jacobson is a Jew and teaches him enough Hebrew to read the book of Jonah, which he will read each sabbath for the rest of his life. And he teaches him the philosophy of Parmenides. And then he is released to serve out the war at a fire lookout and forest ranger in New England, settling there alone and staying on until he retires. Then the visits begin from the families of the miners, wanting to know of their loved ones’ last moments and final words. And through these visits, the full story of the cave-in and escape emerges. Finally, Magda comes. And he shares things about her father never spoken in their brief marriage. But what of them?

Jonah seems particularly significant to understanding this story. Ondro spends days in the belly of the earth; Jonah in the belly of the fish. Both were dark places, death places. The great fish vomits up Jonah. Ondro crawls through the rotting carcass of Wicked. They both live, but never the same. And they both carry “words” for others.

The story is one continuous sentence, reflecting the unfolding memories of Ondro looking back. I have to admit finding it hard to find stopping places, but the continuous narrative makes sense of the flow of his life, interwoven with memories of the fateful events of the mine. It’s a compelling story of meeting death and making meaning of life, often with much faltering along the way and with the help of others. I found it an exquisite story, one in which every word does its work, with nothing extraneous.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Fall and Redemption of Conscience

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Cover image of "The Fall and Redemption of Conscience" by Andrea Ferrari

The Fall and Redemption of Conscience

The Fall and Redemption of Conscience (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Andrea Ferrari, foreword by Paul T. Nimmo. Lexham Academic (ISBN: 9781683598725) 2026.

Summary: A study of conscience in relation to the Triune God as created, fallen, redeemed, and perfected.

Andrea Ferrari argues that at one time conscience was an important theological topic. He cites John Calvin who wrote: “The theologian’s task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable.” However, he argues conscience has suffered neglect in contemporary Christian thought. Thus, this book is an effort to recover a robust Christian theology of conscience. Ferrari sets out to provide an account that is biblical, theological, trinitarian, and covenantal. It follows a stream of influences in the Reformed tradition from John Calvin, Herman Bavinck, Michael Horton and Simeon Zahl. Ferrari was especially influenced by an essay by the late John Webster, seeing himself fleshing out Webster’s “skeleton.”

Ferrari distinguishes his work in several ways. Firstly, he offers a comprehensive account of conscience based on the whole of scripture. Secondly, he offers a specific analysis of the Old Testament. Thirdly, he explores conscience within the doctrine of creation, showing conscience existed prior to the fall, deriving from inner life of the Triune God. Finally, his study focuses on a reorientation of conscience away from self and toward God.

The plan of the book follows a classic Reformed structure of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. What distinguished the book for me is how Ferrari elaborated that structure. He begins in the first three chapters to consider conscience in light of creation. He looks at conscience first in prelapsarian terms, reflecting something of the inner life of the Trinity and key to humans’ covenantal relationship with God.

Then Ferrari considers, in chapters four and five, the fall, condemnation and corruption of conscience as it relates to other human capacities. He builds on Calvin’s idea of sensus divinitatis, of conscience as a nonphysical perceptual awareness of God. He then considers how the fall corrupts the integrity, innocence, capacity for true self-knowledge and self-scrutiny of the conscience.

The third section, chapters six through nine, addresses the redeemed conscience. Ferrari’s focus is on the renewal of conscience as a manifestation of new creation. This involves reversing the noetic effect of sin. Furthermore, this renewal includes the subjective experience of justification in cleansing from guilt and shame, moving the redeemed from a stance of hiding to openness to God.

Finally, as the last chapter in part three, Ferrari describes the perfection of conscience. He elaborates the visio Dei, our heightened awareness and clear perception of God. He likens this to Christ’s human conscience in its perfection. This enables us to enter into the very inner life of the Trinity from which our conscience derived.

As Ferrari notes, I thought this treatment moved us from conscience as an aspect of self-consciousness to recognizing the wonder of conscience as God’s gift, enabling our covenantal relationship of trust and faithfulness. All the more is this so as one weighs the contrast of the fallen and renewed conscience, especially the shift from darkened understanding to increasing clarity of perception, and from hiding from to openness to God. And then there is the hope of the perfected conscience! This is a rich study that recovers the doctrine of conscience as a glorious gift of the Triune God.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Invitation

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Cover image of "A Wayfarer's Invitation: The Invitation" by T.A. Gibson

A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Invitation

A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Invitation, T. A. Gibson. Resource Publications (ISBN: 9798385225644) 2026.

Summary: Poems celebrating wonder in creation, in one another, and in the Waymaker, inviting attention and belief.

This is the second collection of A Wayfarer’s Poems by T.A. Gibson, the first being A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Mirror published in 2024. I note that because, having delighted in the second, I want to go back to the first.

The poems in this collection are divided into two parts. Those in “To Live” celebrate our life embedded in the beauties of creation, marriage, family, and friends, and ultimately our Creator. Then those in “To Listen” center on attending to “The Waymaker” (part of the title of one poem) to see with wisdom, to trust, and to worship.

In the opening poem, “Aubade (Morning Love Song)” the poet observes the beauties of a woodland morning, conscious that we do not possess these as a crown because the Lord “keeps the good ones for himself.” Another poem, “In Texas,” describes beauties different and unique to that setting. The poet describes a “Love of Life” where the boundaries of self dissolve in sleep and he senses himself “a part of a greater Divinity.”

Other poems are very much grounded in life. “Heritage (To the Helms Family)” considers what we pass from one generation to the next. Several of the poems revel in the wonders of marital love, particularly the paired “Love’s Nature” and “Love’s Vows,” that beautifully and sensually portray the wonder of the “one flesh” relationship. Other poems consider how we live toward God as “Sonnet: Let Us Live” invites us to “live like we had eight hours left. A couple of the poems mark the particular rhythms of rest and reflection on Sundays.

The second section, “To Listen” opens with “A Jewel.” The jewel resides in the heart, an “inner reverence that sets me apart from the world’s decrees.” In the end, it is a hope that abides beyond physical death. The poet reflects upon “Grace,” both its incomprehensibility and our inability to “quantify its perfectness.” Then we are reminded that “we don’t own our souls.” In “Plight” we discover that prior to all our listening, “I am God listening.” The poems throughout this section center on the Waymaker’s invitation to hear and see. Lastly, the poet concludes with a blessing: “I have made you in my image and blessed you like this–do not lose your song”

The poems are indeed invitations to experience and celebrate the goodness of creation and of human bonds. They also point us to the Transcendent, to know ourselves within God’s purposes and abiding love. This is a collection I will savor as a wayfarer.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Racial Justice for the Long Haul

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Cover image of "Racial Justice for the Long Haul" by Christine Jeske

Racial Justice for the Long Haul

Racial Justice for the Long Haul, Christine Jeske. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514011034) 2026.

Summary: Qualitative ethnographic research analyzing why some white advocates for racial justice persevere.

Pursuing racial justice is hard and long work. While many White Christians are convicted of the important work they can exercise as allies and advocates, enduring in that work for the long haul is another matter. Anthropologist Christine Jeske undertook to study why some have persevered in the work when many fell by the wayside. She began by working with racial justice advocates of color, asking them to recommend Whites who were examples of enduring advocacy. One of the first findings of her research was how many could not think of a single White person they could recommend. However, she eventually identified seventy people across four sites to interview. This book translates her findings into an engaging summary for a wider audience than her research colleagues. Across the stories of the seventy, she found three elements that sustained an engagement in justice advocacy.

The first of these elements is collision. This is the experience of confronting racial realities that strips away the “white imagination.” It might be an immersion in a Black neighborhood. Or it could be an honest conversation about what it is like for persons of color to deal with White people. For others, it could be a collision with either the ranking or invisibility of persons of color. Perhaps it is an experience where the tables are turned and they are the invisible ones. Others confront their own complicity with racial injustice. All of these engage the heart and are the moments where people began to care.

But this is only a beginning. Those who persevere also ask a lot of why. This is a process that engages the mind in understanding the history and structures of racism. One learns about the interlocking influences of education, incarceration, housing, hiring, and law perpetuate inequalities across racial groups. This leads to coming to terms with the scope of the challenge and a more realistic understanding of possible solutions. It is here, though, that challenges to perseverance rise. How do we embody what we know? Then how do we deal with the complexity of problems that defy simple solutions? Also, there are the real fears and guilt over the mistakes we inevitably will make, no matter how well intentioned.

And this leads to the third element that distinguished Jeske’s findings from most anti-racist training. It is the experience of responding to grace. It is the experience that turns despair into hope, when one experiences what one doesn’t deserve, not only from God, but from people of color. Yet this can be controversial. White’s transgress, often grievously. And people of color forgive. it becomes a stereotypic expectation. Jeske distinguishes the characteristics of true from false grace. Real prior indebtedness exists. Then grace is given freely rather than demanded. True grace is not mere psychology but traces back to God. Finally, it anticipates a response beginning with sincere apology, thanksgiving, reparation and restoration.

Jeske concludes with discussing the fruit of grace, hope. Again she distinguishes true from illusory hopes. True hope laments, mends, and risks–all hard work. But true hope also leans into joy, the celebrating of reconciled life together.

What marks this book is the combination of academic rigor and honest realism about long haul justice advocacy for whites. There is real struggle and failure and despair. Often change happens slowly and mostly in local, communal settings. The grace and hope she writes of come on the other side of these hard realities and are not cheaply won. This is supported by the stories of those who have persevered and by Jeske’s own story, included as an appendix. Jeske leaves readers under no illusion that it will be easy. But she also offers the hope of grace, that we neither achieve nor deserve but can only receive and respond to.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Wounded Generation

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Cover image of "The Wounded Generation" by David Nasaw

The Wounded Generation

The Wounded Generation, David Nasaw. Penguin Press (ISBN: 9780593298695) 2025.

Summary: The experience of veterans returning from World War II, their invisible wounds and their impact, and the G.I. Bill.

We know them as “The Greatest Generation.” They were the veterans of World War II who fought a two-front war against fascist Italy and Germany and against Japan. My father was among them. Over 16 million Americans served in the military. For many of the men and women who fought on the front lines, they returned as different people than when they departed. Some bore obvious physical wounds. But others bore invisible wounds, traumas we would not begin to understand until the Vietnam era.

Those traumas took their toll on the veterans and their families. While these traumas were poorly understood at the time, our government did understand its need to reintegrate these large numbers of people into American9 society. The G.I. Bill may have represented one of the greatest social programs up to that time, targeting the welfare of a particular population, although Black benefits did not share many of those benefits. David Nasaw, whose father was also one of those veterans, offers in this book, an analysis of the experience of Americans returning home from the war.

Nasaw begins by describing how news reporting and the film reels shown in theatres told a heroic version of the war. Meanwhile, the details of the horrors of the war were carefully censored. This also included many of the bad habits troops acquired while in service. Nasaw describes the free distribution of cigarettes which addicted a generation, the alcoholism, and the sexual ventures of the troops. Then there were those left behind, particularly wives and girlfriends. They did not always wait faithfully.

When the war ended, the government faced the challenge of demobilization. European veterans faced possible reassignment in the Eastern theatre until Japan’s surrender. Nasaw analyzes the tension between gradual demobilization cushioning the impact of returnees with the pressures of waiting families. No one quite anticipated what both the veterans and their families would face.

There was the challenge of marital readjustments and the resultant rise in divorce rates. Then there were the psychological problems. On one hand, no one wanted to be labeled a “psych,” Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of the book describes the experience of those sent to hospitals enduring electroshock treatments or even partial lobotoimies. Most dealt with the nightmares and psychic pain by drinking, with resultant climbs in the incidence of alcoholism. and they tried to ignore the problems by throwing themselves into civilian life

But physical challenges also confronted the veterans, from getting jobs to finding housing to purchasing scarce consumer goods. Nasaw also describes each of these challenges and steps the government took to address them. The biggest of these was the G.I. Bill. Veterans benefits included a weekly benefit while they sought employment, mortgage assistance, and most prominently, educational benefits.

But not all veterans equally enjoyed those benefits. Nasaw chronicles the systematic discrimination against Blacks, both during the war and in access to benefits, often controlled by the states. Particularly, the Jim Crow South did not want Blacks to advance. And even in the North, Black veterans were often shut out of certain housing markets. Women and homosexuals also faced forms of discrimination.

However these programs did have a huge impact on the American landscape. Millions used G.I. benefits to go to college. Housing developers like William Levitt found ways to streamline home construction, building the American suburbs achieving record levels of home ownership, especially among Whites. The social programs extended to veterans fed the advocacy of the Civil Rights movement.

Nasaw also reminds us of the darker toll of the war reflected in the rising incidence of lung cancer and early deaths from alcoholism. Only after Vietnam did doctors identify and develop treatment for PTSD. For World War II veterans, it was often the death of a spouse or retirement that finally led them to talk to someone. Others had traumatic brain injuries, undiagnosed for decades.

None of what Nasaw describes in this book takes away from the accomplishments of “The Greatest Generation.” Rather, he brings to light the quiet heroism of those who went on to fight other battles. Some struggled with inner wounds while others faced discrimination. He also calls attention to the effectiveness of the social programs linked with the G.I. Bill, even with its shortcomings.

As I read this book, I wondered about my own father and how the war changed him. He was proud of his service in a mobile field hospital in Germany but he said little about his service apart from a visit of a general to award medals to troops. While he was close to but not on the front lines, he saw the effects of war. Like many veterans, he threw himself into work on returning home, providing for his family. He neither smoked nor drank. But I wonder what he carried from those years. Whatever is the case, he was certainly a part of “The Greatest Generation” in my eyes.

The Weekly Wrap: August 9-15

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The Weekly Wrap: August 9-15

Reading Projects

Have you ever thought of reading through an encyclopedia, from A to Z? In 2004, A. J. Jacobs published The Know-It-All, chronicling his big project of reading through the 32 volumes of the print edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I am reading the book, and while I haven’t gotten to the end of the book, it is apparent that he discovered that lots of factual knowledge is not the equivalent of wisdom. I liked browsing our family’s encyclopedia as a child, but reading through one? No way!

A reading project usually involves either a number of books or one very large and challenging book. For many, the ultimate challenge seems to be the reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses or Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Hugo’s Les Miserables. Frankly, I have no interest in Joyce, but Les Miserables is on my TBR. I’ve known some to take on a topic, like the biographies of the presidents or the English monarchs. Others like to read all the works of an author. One of my reading goals for this year is to read the major novels of Jane Austen.

It seems to me that one of the reasons to pursue a reading project is that you’ve found an author or topic you love and simply want to read as much on it as you can. However, there is a certain allure for some to read through a set, whether an encyclopedia, a multi-volume theology like that of Karl Barth, or The Great Books.

I have two reading projects that I hope to get to. One is to read the set of Balzac novels my grandfather collected and handed down to my mom, who loved reading them when she was young. The other is to read the three-volume Systematic Theology of Charles Hodge. I bought it from a retiring pastor forty odd years ago. So, maybe in my retirement I’ll get around to reading it.

In the end, what it comes down to is that there are so many good books to read. But we only have one life to read them. So the project is choosing those books that will mean the most to us, to read and re-read.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Do you like thrillers and mysteries? I certainly do. The New York Times just published “Readers Pick Their 100 Best Thrillers of the Century.” You’ve probably read some and might find some others that pique your interest.

Richard Russo grew up in a hardscrabble town and his books revolve around characters from these places. In “Hard-Luck Men in Hardscrabble Towns,” Mark Oppenheimer looks at the corpus of his novels as well as reviewing the latest.

Many of us from the Vietnam era read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Now Susan Farrell has written Vonnegut’s War: The Making of Slaughterhouse-Five looking back at Vonnegut’s World War II experiences as a P.O.W. and how they influenced the book. Here is the Publishers Weekly starred review.

Melanie Challenger has written what looks to be a fascinating book on human agency, Alive: The Hidden Intelligence of the Living World. She previews the book in “Where Does the Will To Live Come From… in Humans and Nonhumans Alike?“

“Wielding the Blue Pencil” reveals that British publishers only added editors to their staff after World War II. The article explores the reasons why publishers added editors and the relationships formed between authors and editors.

Quote of the Week

John Galsworthy explains why politicians in power don’t always advocate the same things they did when in opposition:


“There is one rule for politicians all over the world: Don’t say in Power what you say in opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.”

Miscellaneous Musings

“Jason Arday, Cambridge Scholar Who Resigned Under Scrutiny, Is Found Dead.” This story turned up in my email late yesterday. Police do not believe his death was suspicious. He was the youngest professor appointed at Cambridge but recently faced charges of plagiarism and of embellishing his resume. He resigned from Cambridge last week. Out of respect, I will not speculate, particularly because cause of death hasn’t been established and the investigations of the charges against him were ongoing at the time of his death. Very tragic.

This case also brings to mind authors rightly and wrongly accused of using AI generated text and not disclosing it. Recently, a novelist lost a $2 million dollar deal over such accusations. My son passed along this very helpful article: “You Will Be Accused of Using AI. Here Is How to Prove You Wrote It.”

Earlier this year, Daniel Kraus’ Angel Down won this year’s Pulitzer Prize. Three hundred pages. One sentence. Andrew Krivak’s Mule Boy is not that extreme but I’ve counted a single sentence covering a least four pages. Can’t say that I’m a fan of this kind of writing. Probably too much training about run-on sentences! But probably no one challenged him for using AI to write it!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: David Nasaw, The Wounded Generation

Tuesday: Christine Jeske, Racial Justice for the Long Haul

Wednesday: T.A. Gibson, A Wayfarer’s Poems: The Invitation

Thursday: Andrea Ferrari, The Fall and Redemption of Conscience

Friday: Andrew Krivak, Mule Boy

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for August 9-15.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.